The phenomena that we collectively refer to as “play” form a significant part of life at numerous levels. According to the play scholar, Johan Huizinga, play has not only been part of all human societies, it is also at the root of the development of numerous cultural activities, including structured games and sports, certain judicial and legal activities, war, and numerous forms of art. Despite its importance, play, with its various manifestations, is often relegated to being a children’s activity or an occasion of pure waste, and is a surprisingly marginalized topic in academic scholarship. In part to remedy this deficit, my aim in this thesis is to explore the comparatively new phenomenon of video games as a particular form of play. While there are undoubtedly many philosophical approaches that can respond to different aspects of the “problem” of video games, I propose that Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s philosophy of “difference” and “becoming” is particularly useful. On the one hand, Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy provides a viable framework through which to determine the limitations of the current prominent theories in the field of video game studies, which include “narratology”, “ludology”, and the more recent “hybrid approach”. On the other hand, their philosophy enables one to extend the creative and transformative potential that is inherent to a philosophical “problem”, in this case the “problem” of video games. By adapting selected Deleuzian and Deleuzoguattarian philosophical concepts, including “assemblage”, “percept”, “affect”, “transversal becoming”, and “becoming-imperceptible”, I aim to establish a philosophical framework through which different forms of play, and different video games, can be analyzed in terms of their capacity to generate “difference” and “becoming”. More specifically, I argue that video games can be understood as particular kinds of “play assemblages” that can potentially open the player to “transversal becomings”. The video games that I analyze as play assemblages that can generate “transversal becomings” are Thatgamecompany’s Flower (2009) and Journey (2012). Importantly, “transversal becomings”, understood in this instance as the “becoming-other” of human individuals, have the potential to contribute to the individual’s capacity for creative thought and action. Therefore, I argue that video games, far from being activities of pure waste, can potentially open the player to various forms of “becoming-other”, which can, in turn, increase the player’s capacity to think differently, to become different and to create differences. Ultimately, I aim to promote the value of play and video games on the one hand, and the value of Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy on the other hand, for the aim of extending the questioning power of life, and increasing our capacity to effectively respond to a continuously changing world of problems.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:28322 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Du Plessis, Corné |
| Publisher | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Faculty of Arts |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Doctoral, DPhil |
| Format | v, 274 leaves, pdf |
| Rights | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University |
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